Introduction

Welcome to A World At Their Feet: a podcast about African soccer during the Cold War. Over three body episodes and one concluding episode, host Evan Atchison covers the extraordinary stories of four African countries that navigated independence, geopolitics, domestic turmoil, dictatorship, and second-class citizenship over the 45-year period known as the Cold War. Soccer was a crucial institution for resistance, social mobility, and achieving political goals. At the same time, the sport could be subversive, contributing to both the rise and fall of authoritarian regimes. I utilize both primary source research from Ghanaian and South African newspaper archives, Gale’s decolonization archive, and match footage. I also rely on the work of a variety of scholars, including Peter Alegi, Paul Darby, Paul Dietschy, Ken Bediako, Laurent Dubois, Martin Evans, Mahfoud Amara, Youcef Boundel, Malcolm MacLean, Matthew Connelly, Natalya Vince, Pierre Lanfranchi, Alexis Tadie, Nicolas Bancel, Meshack Owino, Sifosi Mxolisi Ndlovu, Samuel M. Clevenger, David Rooney, Kwame Dankwa, Eric Quaidoo, Conner Heffernan, Bangela Lema, Jeroen Van Den Bosch, Tamba Nlundu, and Peter Vale.